Saving The Ghosts of the Forest

I went this evening to the Grosvenor Auditorium at the National Geographic Museum to listen to talk by Dr Lisa Dabek on Matschie Tree Kangaroos (Dendrolagus matschiel). She works on studying and the conservation of the Papua New Guinea's elusive tree kangaroo.

I enjoyed the talk for several reasons. It was incredible to learn about the Cloud Forests in Papua New Guinea, how untouched they are. She called the cloud forests a soft or gentle forest. They have a carpet of moss and the plants are very gentle. With no large mammals, the forest is very safe to walk around at day or night. The forest also doesn't have any primates, really, so the Matschie is their 'primate'. The forest is a high forest so it is cold and wet rather than hot and humid like its tropical counterparts. These forests are also extremely inaccessible due to the altitudes and the fact that they are untouched. Flying into a nearby village and hiking up for 2 hours gets the researchers into the forest where they can set up camp and base for their research. The photos looked extremely gorgeous.

The Tree Kangaroo, the other reason I enjoyed this talk, looked so adorable. Even Dr Dabek described them as plush toys up in the tree. They are small and spend most of their time high high up in the trees of the forest. This makes them really hard to spot, especially with their colouring. Their reddish colour blends in with the moss that covers the tree. The sharp eyes of the locals and their hanging tails help in the spotting of this animals. These animals can jump to the forest ground from high up in the tree. That seems to be their way of escaping the Harpee eagle, their only non-human predator. To radiotag these animals or to attach a crittercam on them, one of the locals climbs up in the tree and prods them. While, others are waiting down to capture the kangaroo when it leaps down.

Dr Dabek had a photo of the 4 month joey in the the pouch. The joey looks like a foetus since it still has no hair developed. It was pretty cool getting to see a photo like that.

I am really glad I decided to go for this talk :)